THERE is such a thing as a free lunch. It just comes with commercials.

A rash of new companies – Gobi, Enchilada, Microworkz, DirectWeb – has popped up in the last six months that’ll lease you a new computer with unlimited Internet access for between $20 and $30 a month. At the end of the contract you get to keep the hardware for a small fee.

When you consider that’s what you pay just for the Internet alone, this seems like a deal. Computers are getting cheaper, but they are still more of a headache to run than, say, a car. Most people entering the market at this point just want to surf the web and do a bit of word processing.

Gobi Inc is a Silicon Alley company that aims to provide a simple out-of-the-box experience, aimed at the sort of person who might otherwise go to AOL. For $25.95 a month, plus setup fee and shipping (call it another $75) you get a 333 MHz PC made by Selectron and branded with the Gobi logo – an orange ball. The deal is, you’re locked in for three years.

And one other thing: you hand over your date of birth, credit card- and social security numbers.

Because this is the new economy. Gobi’s business model is not to make money selling beige boxes, but on lucrative partnerships with customers, online retailers and marketers.

Gobi’s offices are like a slice of California come to the Wall Street area. The walls are roughly painted in orange and green. A large cactus stands in the reception area. Rooms are barely furnished. Cardboard boxes lurk in corners, half-unpacked. Of 20 people there, seems to be no one over 30.

Soft-spoken CEO Ganesh Ramakrishna, 26, has a degree from Harvard in Anthropology and Economics (‘I studied how people spend their money,” he jokes) explains what caused him to form the company in late 1998. “While the cost of hardware and Internet access are going down, the value of the customer’s attention is going up.”

But this is more than just an “eyeball play.” Essentially, the desktop becomes a portal, which is exactly what Microsoft hoped to do with Windows 98. On the pale blue background there are a few discreet buttons – a search box connected to the Google search engine, buttons for the usual suspects (CitiBank, Amazon, E*Trade, CNN, ESPN) and buttons like “CHECK YOUR E-MAIL,” “CHAT” and “GO SHOPPING.” Dial-up is automatic, and log on is fast because the server identifies you by your machine’s serial number.

All this aims to send you into the arms of grateful advertisers and e-tailers, the way an Amazon Associates button does, and bring a small cut of any transaction to Gobi.

But the real wealth engine at Gobi is in the partnerships department, where they try to link people’s personal information with spending opportunities. In another bare room, where the phone jacks are tagged with Post It notes, VP of Business Development Jason Lehmbeck explains how it works, absent-mindedly hugging a large orange ball as he talks.

“Banner ads,” he says, “are just white noise to me. I don’t even notice them any more. But this is pure one-to-one marketing. For instance, with the calendar we’ll be linking to eitherAnyday.com or Visto, which are online caledars. Once you tell it you’re a sports fan, say, or the date of your mother’s birthday, it’ll prompt you to buy tickets to the game or offer a hyperlink to an appropriate gift store.’

Quick on its feet and light on inventory, Gobi has the profile of a “fast company.” When you’re trading in relationships, however, the only problem is upsetting people. So far all of these companies have been oversubscribed, leading to waiting periods of three to six weeks.

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The Second Rising Tide Summit happens tomorrow at the Synod of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Organized by the increasingly glossy Silicon Alley Reporter, this year’s theme is leadership. 600 people are expected to attend to see if people can stop talking about exit strategies for a day and reclaim the industry for the imagination. Switch that phone.